Page 78 of Kiss of Wrath

“Is it possible . . . I mean, this will sound insane . . . but is it possible that Roger is a Lucipire?”

Lemonade, anyone? . . .

Roger had been in Las Vegas for a week and he was ready to kill someone. Miranda, of course, once he got his hands on her. But first of all, Clarence, who was the biggest, most disgusting pain-in-the-ass Roger had ever met, and there had been plenty in prison.

Among Roger’s many complaints against his self-proclaimed, new best friend, none of which he had the nerve to voice, were these facts:

—Turned out Clarence’s friend Lamar was actually his second cousin, maybe third. No one seemed sure, or cared.

—Turned out Lamar was a pimp and his apartment was a two-bedroom dump above a pizza shop where skanky women came and went as if there was a revolving door. Clarence offered to share the double bed in the guest room—a glorified closet—with Roger, but Roger had declined and spent his nights wrapped in a blanket on the dirty floor.

—Turned out Clarence had a violent temper that could ignite at the least little affront. A guy at the gas station who’d commented on Clarence’s gold tooth ended up with a broken jaw and black eye. A bouncer at the cat house they visited on the way from Ohio got a bullet hole in the thigh, up close to his hairy balls, because he’d accused Clarence of unnecessary roughness with one of the “girls.” Roger had no idea where or for how long Clarence had been carrying a weapon. Scary! And he’d made the cook in a diner shit his pants by lifting him off the floor and banging him against the wall, all because he’d burned Clarence’s burger.

—Turned out Clarence’s habit of openmouthed, loud eating was not confined to ice. Hard pretzels, potato chips, carrot sticks, apples, popcorn, and bread sticks also fit the bill. Crunch, crunch, friggin’ crunch. The only time Clarence wasn’t crunching was when he snored like a locomotive.

—Turned out Clarence was addicted to porn. Child porn. The younger the better. Now, Roger had nothing against porn. He’d jacked off to Anna Nicole Smith a time or two or twenty. But kids? Yuck!

Just then, Clarence walked in, a big smile on his face. “Whatcha doin’?” He’d gone out with Lamar earlier for breakfast at a McDonald’s down the street. In fact, he carried a big-ass container of soda in one hand. Roger knew what that meant. Ice.

Roger was sitting at the kitchen table. The apartment had been empty for once, but then it was only eleven a.m. By late afternoon, it would be a zoo, once again.

“Balancing my checkbook. I’m running out of cash, fast.” The minute he’d left the halfway house, Roger had taken two thousand dollars out of the account he’d once shared with his wife, which left a balance of five thousand and some dollars. Not enough to even buy a car. His own vehicle had been repo’ed while he was in prison. Another thing he could blame on Miranda.

“Well, you know where we can make good money,” Clarence said, slurping the last of his soda, and opening the lid.

Lamar was looking to expand his business and had offered to set them up as pimps on the other side of town. All they had to do was work the bus terminals and homeless shelters for desperate women to start their own stable of hookers. “Easy as fucking a blind monkey,” Lamar had assured them.

Nice picture! “No offense, but I’d rather get a job as an electrician.”

“Rog, Rog, Rog! How much can you earn as an electrician?”

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Roger shrugged. “Twenty-five, thirty-five dollars an hour.”

Clarence laughed and crunched some more. “We could earn a thousand dollars a night, each, on the street. Fast money.”

Where Clarence got this “we” business, Roger wasn’t sure, but he hesitated to point out that they were not a team. Honestly, he wondered how long it would be before Clarence landed back in prison. He was a walking cop magnet.

“I can’t think about that now. I’ve got to take care of other matters first. Don’t forget, that’s why I came to Vegas.”

“The bitch,” Clarence nodded. Crunch, crunch, crunch. He emptied the cup and tossed it toward the waste can. No Michael Jordan was he! He missed, and left the cup on the floor. “I ain’t forgotten nothin’, bro. Jist look out that back window and see what I got for us to do the job.”

Bro? Roger gritted his teeth. How had he gotten himself mixed up with this guy? If he wasn’t careful, he would land in the slammer again, just for associating with the creep.

Roger stood and walked over to the grimy window. All he saw in the alley was a heap of garbage overflowing the Dumpster and a battered van marked “Harrison Plumbing. No Job Too Dirty or Too Small.” Comprehension came to him slowly. “You stole a van?”

“Borrowed it.” Clarence beamed.

“Jeez, Clarence, you’re gonna get us both arrested. Grand theft auto.”

“No prob. By the time Harrison reports it missing and the cops get around to investigating, we’ll have abandoned it outside the city.”

He was probably right.

Clarence was scratching at a red mark on his neck. No doubt he’d been bitten by one of the mouse-size cockroaches that prowled the apartment at night. “What say we cruise the bitch’s neighborhood and case out the situation?” Clarence suggested. “No one will notice us in the shit mobile.”

“Great!” That was the first good idea Roger had heard all day. He closed his checkbook and put it in his back pocket as he stood. Walking toward the door with Clarence, he noticed something odd, and it wasn’t the pistol Clarence was checking for ammunition. ”You smell like lemons.”